1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for manufacturing a steering wheel pad and a method for manufacturing therefor.
2 Description of Related Art
Steering wheels with pads for accommodating air bags are widely used. Such pads are injection molded, using a resin material, into a configuration enabling the accommodation of air bags therein.
More particularly, as shown in FIG. 10, a known steering wheel pad body 32 includes a pocket 35a for securing a metal fitting 42 of an air bag device generally indicated at 43. The pocket 35a is defined between a first upper projection 34 and a hook-shaped second lower projection 35 both extending inwardly from the inner wall of the pad body 32.
A conventional mold 36, described with reference to FIGS. 8 and 9, is utilized to manufacture the conventional steering wheel pad 31 having two projections 34 and 35, which differ from each other in shape. The mold 36 comprises a fixed mold half 37, a movable mold half 38 which moves relative to mold half 37, and a pushing core 39 extensible along a moving path of mold half 38. The core 39 has a first protrusion 39a, a second protrusion 39b, and a depression "D" between the two protrusions 39a, 39b to form the two projections 34, 35 and the pocket 35a on the pad body 32.
For manufacturing the pad 31, a cavity 40 is first defined by moving the movable mold half 38, with the core 39 disposed therein, to a position close to the fixed mold half 37. Molten resin is then injected into the cavity 40 to thereby form the pad 31. Afterwards, the mold half 38 and the core 39 are separated from the mold 37. Subsequently, the pad 31 is separated from the mold half 37.
As shown in FIG. 9, the core 39 is separated from the mold half 38 to push the pad 31 out from the mold half 38. A lateral force is then applied to a bottom portion 33 of the body 32 by an operator's hand 41. This lateral force resiliently bends the bottom portion 33 to separate the second and first projections 35, 34 from the associated protrusions 39b, 39a, respectively, and thus permits the pad 31 to be separated from the core 39.
However, the above-described operation requires the operator to repeatedly apply force to bend the pad body 32 when removing the pad 31 from the core 39. This makes the manufacturing operation tiresome for the operator.